Top
Aphelion is about distances about simultaneously belonging to two countries but being rooted in neither and the many changing senses of home carry within us. In her breakthrough collection, emerging poet Jenna Butler fluently explores this rift, sounding out the meaning of home from the perspective of a British-born Canadian. Written in experimental free verse and set off by anti-ghazals, Aphelion reflects these elemental distances through both subject matter and the way it maps out poems physically on the page.
Butler writes as an exquisite lover of words and the things of this world. Who has written as newly of the humming edges of things? If ever I have read a new poet, any poet, with greater joy, I can hardly remember.-Dennis Cooley
Jenne Butler is an exquisite wordsmith whose poetic lines ring with a resounding clarity. Her ear is finely attuned to language, unerring in cadences and rhythms. Her poems sing "the heart's estranged melody" and never miss a note. Aphelion is an impressive book of poems by a sure-handed poet.-Glen Sorestad
Named after that orbital point located farthest from the sun, Aphelion offers a brilliant fusion of thematic consistency and the pure presence of discovery. The sonorities within the work function flawlessly as music and pure philosophical exploration. I admire this book greatly and recommend it enthusiastically to everyone who already loves poetry and to those about to fall in love with what a poem can be.-Sheila E. Murphy
